At a conference, Tim Hunt, who got the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, said some seriously horrible stuff about why “girls” should not be in science. And it seriously boils down to the attitude of a 5th grader, and is insulting for both women AND men.

“three things happen when they are in the lab … You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticize them, they cry.”

And when he tried to clarify on the radio, he just dug himself in further:

“I did mean the part about having trouble with girls,” he said. “It is true that people - I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it’s very disruptive to the science because it’s terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field.

Of course, he used that for justification as why men and women should work in segregated lab settings. Cause women (I’m sorry, I mean girls) be seducing, and men be helpless walking penises.

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He then went on to try and apologise:

I’m really sorry that I said what I said. It was a very stupid thing to do in presence of all those journalists. And what was intended was a sort of light-hearted, ironic comment … was apparently interpreted deadly seriously by my audience. But what I said was quite accurately reported.

It’s terribly important that you can criticize people’s ideas without criticizing them. If they break in to tears then you hold back from getting at the absolute truth. Science is about nothing except getting at the truth. And anything (that) gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.

I mean I’m really, really sorry that I caused any offense. That’s awful. I certainly didn’t mean … I just meant to be honest actually.

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HE WAS JUST BEING HONEST GUYS. SORRY THAT YOU ARE OFFENDED AT THE TRUTH.

The only issue with having WOMEN in science is that buffoons like Hunt don’t know how to join the 21st century, and act like a goddamn professional.